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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. 12 …Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Photographs of Balloon Debris, July 9, 1947 17. Statement, Lt. Col. Sheridan…
  • p. 13 …Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Photographs of Balloon Debris, July 9, 1947 2. Organizational Chart, Watson Laboratories…
  • p. 27 …These locations include Fort Worth, Texas, the home of the Eighth Air Force Headquarters; possibly Sandia…
  • p. 31 …DC; Federal Records Center, Ft Worth, TX; the INSCOM Archives, Fort Meade, MD; National Air and…
  • p. 35 …in the famous photos (Atch 16) in Fort Worth was that of a radar target normally…
  • p. 36 …were told was a flying saucer to Fort Worth. The people on board included...and Maj…
  • p. 37 …Newton was a weather officer assigned to Fort Worth, who was on duty when the Roswell…
  • p. 42 …photographs taken at the time by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that depicted Ramey and Marcel…
  • p. 43 …the wreckage prior to its getting to Fort Worth. This organization reported on July 20, 1994…
  • p. 47 …After the autopsies, conspiracy theorists said the bodies were flown to Fort Worth and then to…
  • p. 65 …to Fort Worth. "Flying disc." Some of the debris was flown to Fort Worth. as where…
  • p. 84 …Center (WNRC) or the Southwest Regional Depository (Fort Worth, Texas). ## Recommendations Because the records management policy…
  • p. 131 …taken to Eighth Air Force Headquarters in Fort Worth where it was subsequently identified as a…
  • p. 138 …And I obviously...Marcel took it to Fort Worth. Yeah that's the... RW: Yeah. That…
  • p. 139 …into Wright-Pat and Kirtland, or to Fort Worth. Back and forth, loaded up, with very…
  • p. 145 …Then it said: "After Marcel had gone to Fort Worth and came back Marcel challenged the…
  • p. 147 …O.K."Marcel would take some of the sample to Fort Worth to show Ramey. In…
  • p. 150 normal course of his duty was sent to Washington not 8th Air Force in Fort Worth…
  • p. 219 …But the Roswell morning paper clearly showed that there was a knowledgeable person in Fort Worth…
  • p. 231 …Headquarters by a news photographer of the Fort Worth Star Telegram. It's four pictures that…
  • p. 263 …I was the only weather forecaster on duty in the Fort Worth base weather and flight…
  • p. 269 …flown to Eighth Air Force Headquarters at Fort Worth AAF, TX, for his personal inspection. Upon…
  • p. 277 …Before the announcement was made, the "disc" was flown to Fort Worth AAF, at the direction…
  • p. 278 …giant thermos jug" was allegedly transported from Fort Worth AAF to Wright Field. $ ^{38} $ This description…
  • p. 280 designs on it." $ ^{41} $ Furthermore, the Fort Worth Army Airfield Weather Officer, Irving Newton, who was…
  • p. 283 1 Fort Worth Star-Telegram Photographs of Balloon Debris July 9, 1947
  • p. 549 …Similarly, the Fort Worth Sub-Committee established a procedure for flights made within the Fort Worth…
  • p. 616 …Air Coordinating Committee, Fort Worth Regional Airspace Subcommittee. Subject: Obstructions to air navigation...43 5. Memorandum…
  • p. 655 …5/15/47 Office of the Secretary Fort Worth Sub-Committee on Air Space Civil Aeronautics…
  • p. 715 …Arrived in Fort Worth about 9 EDST. Off again to Big Springs, Texas, where forced to…
have ambiguities. You don't know if it went up or down when you get the next pressure contact switch. You'll find that sort of uncertainty in describing the report.

So I'm quite sure that as a result of the failure of the radar tracking, I went back and started using radiosondes even though I didn't have the right equipment.

Q: You mentioned a few moments ago the Watson Laboratory gear, the microphones, and it was also Columbia that was developing the low frequency microphones. You had all of that gear on these balloons, is that correct?

A: No, not on all of them. That mention of a sonobuoy microphone, in the early... While the improved low frequency microphones were being designed and built, we flew on balloons, believe it or not, sonobouy used to detect submarines. We were flying sonobuoy microphones on the balloons.

Q: But the material that's been identified as Watson Lab gear shows up as very generic in all of these reports and things. That was all part of Mogul also, is that correct?

A: That's correct. I think what happened is because the Watson Laboratory radar wasn't very successful, I think we made a number of flights like this. I think I sent a sketch like that to you. We made a number of flights like that which was an unorthodox use of radar targets, and it's my opinion that the thing that caused the debris that was picked up was probably from a cluster of meteorological balloons carrying a cluster of targets.

When something like the idea of a cluster balloon was not only to carry the weight, but was also to keep the target in the air for a long time. If one balloon burst, we still would have enough buoyancy for awhile to keep the thing airborne. When it would come to the ground this would drag along the ground and get shredded, but this would still be carried downwind until another balloon would burst, whereupon this one would start getting shredded. So I think the explanation of why things were over such a large area was, indeed, because it was a cluster, it was multiple targets and cluster balloons.

Q: Of course the issue of the large area has been different in different reports. Different people have stated the 200 yards, Cavitt in his description, described it in terms of his living room which was not that large.

A: Even a single target, if it came down, wouldn't have filled a single living room, but a multiple target, begins dragged sideways and then blown transversally by any later winds, could have filled a reasonable area.

Q: And left pieces of debris everywhere. Depending on...

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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.