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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. 704 …Saw Bob Foster 731, also on way to NYC April 8 Mon. Arrived NYC 730 am…
  • p. 705 …I caught 550 train out of Penn Station to Red Bank, NJ April 29 Mon. Up…
  • p. 706 …1130 pm Owl to NYC May 6 Mon. Caught 625 train out of Penn Station to…
  • p. 707 Dec 2 Mon. Cakhurst. Cold wave hit about midnight - temperature down to $ 1 5^{\circ} $ - strong…
  • p. 708 …Dec 23 Mon. Oakhurst. Worked on Alamogordo and Flight 13. Had flight # 14 this pm. - 24…
  • p. 709 …Jan 13 Mon. Oakhurst. Working on sky wave curves. Made plans for Alamogordo this Thursday Jan…
  • p. 710 …Arrived AP about 1230 Feb 3 Mon Oakhurst. Peoples in Washington regarding balloon ascention in June…
  • p. 711 …Feb 24 Mon. Alamogordo. Waited for air transportation today but none available and may not be…
  • p. 712 …In Asbury Park 3 pm March 10 Mon Oakhurst. Vivian and I worked on Flight 25…
  • p. 713 …Cleaned out hanger and emptied trash out at East White Sands April 7 Mon Talked to…
  • p. 714 …April 21 Mon. Alamogordo Air Base. Bill Edmonston and I went out to Tularosa Range and…
  • p. 715 …May 19 Mon Reynolds and I left about 0946. May 19 Mon Reynolds and I left…
  • p. 716 …May 26 Mon. Worked on Tests 1 and 2 records today. No signals from Roswell - some…
  • p. 717 …Took Ireland, Mears, Winton, Olsen to Alamogordo to catch train this pm June 9 Mon. Bill…
  • p. 718 …July 7 (Mon) Alamogordo. Balloon Flight 11 A off at 0503. Big plastic with small auxiliary…
  • p. 719 …Aug 4 Mon. Up to Oakhurst. Hunt Aug 4 Mon. Up to Oakhurst. Went over developments…
It's of interest, in the Holloman report there's a big talk about boiling balloons. That's certainly a heritage of the association from our early balloon boiling days. When you look at the instructions on the modern balloon, you see that it is really a physical effect that can be controlled.

Q: You went on board at New York University, and you immediately set out, as documented in the reports, acquiring the various materials, [putting out bids], things of this nature. At that point you were working at New York University under the direction...

A: Spilhaus was the nominal principal investigator and director of the project, but he just turned us loose.

Q: So you were the project engineer?

A: I was the project engineer, and Schneider was the project administrator. We employed a lot of students, a lot of people that we could, and were a mixture of trying to develop a constant level balloon and providing service flights for Peoples. Peoples was entirely our contact.

## Q: He would come to New York University?

A: He would go down to Red Bank. He'd call and say he wanted certain things, can you do it, so we made this flight out at Lehigh and then we made the Helgoland flight down at Red Bank, and he wasn't really happy. There were all sorts of constraints flying balloons in the New York City area even then.

Q: All the problems with air traffic and getting FAA, or their equivalent at that time, approval, etc.

A: So up in the stratosphere above my level, a decision was made that we go to Alamagordo, and there would be a big flight. We had balloons promised, but even ahead of that time people wanted to test microphones. He had Crary already, about from December of '46, I think Crary went to Alamagordo and ran a field station and...

Q: That field station was for ballooning in general?

A: For Mogul. It was more than that. Crary was operating sound-ranging microphones on the ground there. He was having bombs dropped off the New Jersey coast and trying to pick up the acoustic signals in New Mexico.

Q: He was having the bombs dropped in New Jersey, off the coast, and trying to detect them in New Mexico?

A: That's correct.

Q: What technique? Balloon borne?

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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.