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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. 15 …Gen Roger M. Ramey Col William H. Blanchard Maj Gen Clements McMullen Brig Gen Donald N…
  • p. 33 …Additionally, this history showed that the 509th Commander, Colonel Blanchard, went on leave on July 8…
  • p. 34 the supposed first ever recovery of extraterrestrial materials. (Detractors claim Blanchard did this as a ploy…
  • p. 43 …Additionally, it seems that there was overreaction by Colonel Blanchard and Major Marcel in originally reporting…
  • p. 65 …William Blanchard, the Public Information Officer, Walter G. Haut, issued a news release that the Amry…
  • p. 87 …on 8 July 1947. Colonel W. H. Blanchard, Commanding Officer went on leave. Lt Colonel Charles…
  • p. 88 …Colonel Oliver LaFarge, Air Reserve Corps, at Santa Fe, made arrangements for Colonel Blanchard to visit…
  • p. 89 …Colonel Blanchard spoke on the future of the Air Force, and the talk was very well…
  • p. 135 …Colonel Blanchard. RW: Oh yeah. Excuse me, Colonel Blanchard. SC: He was the Wing Commander of…
  • p. 138 …The first picture is actually with Jesse Marcel and that's General Blanchard and... SC: I…
  • p. 143 …Colonel William Blanchard and the other officer suggested that Marcel and CIC agent accompanied Brazel to…
  • p. 145 …O.K. "Blanchard, who was still at the base...ordered Marcel to accompany the rancher back…
  • p. 147 …Albuquerque rather than Fort Worth and although Blanchard outranked the CIC agent (meaning yourself) a phone…
  • p. 154 …time and we don't know if Blanchard knew about that or not: (we don't…
  • p. 155 …crash at the request of Marcel; maybe Blanchard, and I probably took Rickett with me. We…
  • p. 160 …The things that Ramey and Blanchard used to! Blanchard came over to the Philippines. I think…
  • p. 219 …What about then Colonel Blanchard and General Ramey? Do you think they may have had any…
  • p. 855 ## CHAPTER XIII # VISITORS and EXECUTIVE CALENDAR 3 September 1947 - Colonel Blanchard and Lt. Haut went to…
  • p. 864 …Roger M. Ramey and Col. William H. Blanchard. Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey was the Commanding…
  • p. 865 …As commander of Roswell Army Airfield and the 509th Bomb Group, Blanchard is alleged to have…
A: What the wind did.

The description that Brazel gives here that everything would weigh about five pounds when it was all together, is more than you would have gotten from a single balloon.

Q: Those were measured in terms of 300 to 500 grams or something like that?

A: Three hundred and fifty only. At that time we didn't have any bigger balloons than 350 grams, so the balloons would have been 350 grams.

Q: About one pound.

A: Correct. And the targets are nominally maybe a quarter of a pound.

Q: Those targets are only four to five ounces?

A: Here was the specification spelled out for it. Approximate weight, 100 grams. These, as I say, are somewhat heavier than the ones we had.

Q: You indicated that the balsa wood was coated with some sort of glue such as Elmer's glue.

A: That's my memory. It wasn't completely coated. Some of it was and some of it wasn't.

Q: Some of the balsa wood is fairly dense, as far as being durable, and one of the descriptions concerning this "wood-like" material was that you couldn't dent it with your fingernail. So if you have a fairly dense balsa wood coated with a glue, it may be quite possible that a person would not be able to put their fingernail in it.

A: That's correct. It's my memory that the reflective material was more aluminum foil than here. These are second or third iteration targets, as evidenced by this picture, wherever that picture is down in here of the 1948 flight. It certainly looks more aluminum-foil like.

Q: What year were you discharged from active duty?

A: '46.

Q: Before you left active duty, while you were still working with Duffy and Spilhaus, did they invite you to join the staff at New York University, or to continue your studies there?

A: I came back from overseas and was assigned to Colonel Duffy's, he had a little flight detachment assigned to him with a B-29 and a B-25 and some other aircraft. I ended up being the

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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.