Documents / Report
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.
“Gross”27 pages
A: On the afternoon of the 8th. It may have been published on the 9th, but... Q: You're right. Evening of the 8th. Examination by the Army revealed last night, a high altitude weather balloon. General Ramey, Commander, 8th Air Forces, cleared up the mystery. A: In these pictures here, don't show these flaps. This, I think, is my step ladder that I used to reach high targets, when we have these big balloon trains going way up in the air. Here again, is an unorthodox use of radar targets. We did that, and as far as I know, other people didn't. Q: Did you ever use radar targets with the polyethylene balloons? A: Yes, sir. In fact somewhere I have a picture where we flew a missile, we launched a missile for O&R Special Devices Center in 1949. I have a picture showing the targets up and down the balloon train there. Q: Do you remember trying to pin down some of these flights that could possibly cause this misunderstanding? You talk about putting a target with the neoprene balloons, but at that time you also launched them with the polyethylene? A: This picture I showed you right here. This is a polyethylene balloon. Q: So you used a visual by the aircraft to watch the balloon? It would circle underneath. A: The aircraft circling underneath were really to pick up the microphone signals. That was part of the Watson Lab operation. Our operation, we depended on radiosons and where we could get radar tracking for tracking air balloons. But the aircraft operation here was entirely to support Project Mogul. We didn't consider ourselves Mogul because I didn't even know the name. Q: The summary of flights... A: That's one of the flights with the mixed interpretations because of the radiosondes. Q: In one column it says "tracking percent." Then sometimes it will say by aircraft. A: That's true. Q: So "aircraft observation", was that a visual observation or an electronic?
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.