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

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...