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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. 193 …overhead and followed the balloons out to sea. I have no idea about the results that…
  • p. 200 …the regular 334 that we had at sea level. From that they could deduce the temperature…
  • p. 243 …actually located on the jurisdictional lines between Sea Girt and Springlake, New Jersey. It was an…
  • p. 244 …The Sea Girt Inn? A: Exactly. That's where John had his office, and I was…
  • p. 320 …alone is about 24,000 miles at sea level, and about 4500 miles at 45,000…
  • p. 325 …twenty-five (25) feet at their largest sea-level diameter. The sonic unit was a combination…
  • p. 378 …per hour when one-fifth inflated at sea level). One other type of balloon which has…
  • p. 402 …Let us, then, compare the rate of leakage at any given altitude with leakage at sea…
  • p. 404 …The leakage at any altitude may be expressed as a function of leakage at sea level…
  • p. 405 Comparing rate of leakage at 40,000 feet with leakage at sea level: $$ \frac {L _ {4…
  • p. 407 …If a 20-foot diameter balloon $ \frac{1}{1 0} $ full were tested at sea level…
  • p. 408 …At sea level this is equivalent to 5.32 gm/hr. for a 20-foot diameter…
  • p. 414 …Using the rules of subsonic aerodynamics, Picard suggests that air at sea level escaping at 1333…
  • p. 415 …air at sea level (lb./ft. $ ^{3} $ ) 14.7 = pressure of air at sea level (psi…
  • p. 432 …to about 20 millibars and increased to sea-level pressure at different temperatures. The most comprehensive…
  • p. 563 …The height above mean sea level as determined from pressure measurements used in this work with…
  • p. 644 …point at which the radiosonde reaches the sea surface. ## 2. Earlier attempts There have been numerous…
  • p. 645 …The balloons floated between the surface and 30,000 ft above sea level; those which reached…
  • p. 704 …Met Gifford who has 90' sea rescue boat this project is planning to use. Stayed at…
  • p. 719 …Worzel working on gravity at sea. Saw Geo Woollard and the Ryders. Woollard after Guggenheim fellowship…
  • p. 779 …the launching site is markedly different from sea level, a shift in this curve is needed…
  • p. 817 …balloon at all times with respect to sea level. On this curve also it is customary…
  • p. 825 …The height above mean sea level as determined from pressure measurements used in this work with…
A: Is that so? I don't remember. I simply don't remember. But if the chart says that, I'll go along with the chart.

Q: Major W. D. Pritchard. On July 10th in the Alamagordo newspaper, there's an article where it shows, it doesn't say when this was taken, but it says a Major Pritchard and his balloon group are demonstrating to reporters what these balloons and the various radar reflectors look like. Now, Charlie Moore took a look at that and said, "I don't recall there being any other balloon group in New Mexico or in that area at the same time we were there."

A: I think Charlie's right. I don't recall any either.

Q: So we were trying to figure out whether Major Pritchard was maybe a counterintelligence type person or whether he was there reviewing the security procedures, or maybe he was there for promulgating the cover story of weather balloon and weather research so that MOGUL would not come out in the open. The article in the paper talks about the use of reflectors for tracking purposes—the radar reflectors for tracking purposes—but it never comes out talking about MOGUL and the instrumentation that you all were using for nuclear detection or the tests that were being conducted.

A: Could Major Pritchard have been attached to or some way connected with the base weather station at Alamagordo?

Q: Well, sir, we don't know, but he is identified in that newspaper article as being a public information officer. When we traced that name back to your organization, we thought he may have been essentially undercover himself. We don't know if that's the same person, even though it's the same name.

A: I'm afraid I can't offer any positive knowledge here.

Q: Were you associated with any counterintelligence people in Watson Labs or...

A: Not to my knowledge. If some were around, they were spoofing me because I didn't know it.

Q: Were there any other types of intelligence persons on your staff or the staff of Watson Laboratories?

A: Not to my knowledge.

Q: So the only people you had were actually civilian researchers...

A: And a few military officers, yes.

Q: Signal Corps and Army Air Force?

A: All the officers that I had on my staff were Air Force. I had no Signal Corps people at all.

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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.