The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

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