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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. 190 …Well, Boford was Navy, that was the Navy... Q: Like taking a Pi Ball reading now…
  • p. 191 …fabricate balloons for us. During that period we heard of the Navy project that was going…
  • p. 207 …But were any of those used as precursors to Mogul or... A: None whatsoever. That was…
  • p. 270 …Ewing had conducted considerable research for the Navy during World War II, studying, among other things…
  • p. 323 …f) Measurements of actual sound channel transmission using a small stratosphere balloon carrying sound receivers and…
  • p. 657 …At the present time this company cannot supply us with balloons until Navy clearance is obtained…
  • p. 693 …for six hours using a non-extensible envelope with the addition of a ballast valve to…
  • p. 704 …Met Gifford who has 90' sea rescue boat this project is planning to use. Stayed at…
  • p. 705 …Wyckoff, Hungerfield, Vaux and myself regarding Navy participation with us in Crossroads. Captain Kellogg of Weather…
  • p. 718 …Schneider up with O'Day to check use as NYU station. Alamoggrdo crew helped get helium…
A: Oh, yeah. I visited people in Washington.

Q: Just for the record, Major Marcel later worked at [AFOAT-1]. Do you recognize him at all?

A: Not at all. The people I was involved with were civilian scientists. If we looked at a list of people at Northrop, Doyle Northrop sort of sticks in my mind, and there are other names I've seen related to that. Yeah, I knew that guy, but I never knew Marcel.

Q: So you went, moving into Mogul, you did go on the June and July field trips.

A: I ran them.

Q: How many did you go on? All of them?

A: I didn't go to the one in the Pacific. If you look at the planning on the Project Fitzwilliam, my name was listed as the person as being there. Then suddenly, I'm not. What happened, my people got taken away from me and I had to recruit brand new people to help me fly balloons into Alamagordo during the April and May 1948 operations. So I had new personnel, and we went up and down the Rio Grande Valley trying to launch balloons so they would pass over the ground stations at Alamagordo.

Q: During that early period, before you had your full complement of various types of balloons, did you ever use any of the Japanese balloons? We were given the impression there were at least a few of the Japanese balloons made available.

A: I got very interested in the Japanese balloons and communicate, and I have pieces of the Japanese balloon downstairs if you're interested in seeing a piece of it. And I've got translations. I met the chief of the Central Meteorological Office, a Dr. Wadati, and he put me in contact, so I have extensive files on the Japanese balloons.

Q: But were any of those used as precursors to Mogul or...

A: None whatsoever. That was part of a promotion that... When I went to General Mills, Winzen who had been the great entrepreneur, had gotten fired. He'd gotten caught in a prevarication about whether or not the Navy was going to provide money. He was replaced by a fellow named Frank Jewitt. Jewitt recruited me out of graduate school. We really promoted balloons. That's part of the balloon promotion.

Q: None of the Japanese balloons were actually used as far as a precursor to Mogul or anything like that.

A: That is absolutely correct.

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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.