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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…
Hr. David Bushnell MDNH Air Force Missile Development Center Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico

Dear Mr. Bushnell:

It has taken me much too long in answering your inquiries of 9 October 1958 but I hope this information will be of some value to you in preparing a history of balloon operations at Holloman. Thanks also for the three reports which you sent me.

Answering your specific questions, my EDCMR to Holloman was 20 January 1948. I reported in about 1 February 1948. I immediately joined the Electronic and Atmospheric Projects Section and remained in this same basic organization through its various name changes for my entire tour at Holloman.

I attended the January 1950 Class at the Air Tactical School, Tryndall Air Force Base, Florida for sixteen (16) weeks and returned to Holloman by 15 May.

On 31 July 1950 I was assigned Chief, Geophysical Research Unit, (Balloon) Electronics and Atmospheric Branch, Technical Operations Section, O&P on Special Orders No. 152, par 24. This, I believe, was the first balloon organization. On 29 May 1951, S.O. No. 111, par 8 redesignated me without change of assignment as Chief, Balloon Atmospheric Unit, Electronics and Atmospheric Branch; Development and Test Section Base Directorate, Technical Operations. Then in S.C. No. 98, 13 November 1951, par 11, I was Chief, Balloon Sonde Sub- Unit, Electronics and Atmospheric Unit, Development and Test Section, Operations.

I was never the Holloman Base Weather Officer. Lt Colonel Maas was assigned as Base Weather Officer and as head of the E&A organization as a dual assignment for a while.

There was a continuity of organization from the earliest balloon activities up to the present. The name changed but the group continued. The radar research activities, the Aerobee rocket atmospheric investigations and the balloon activities were sponsored originally

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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.