Documents / Report

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. 15 …Gen Roger M. Ramey Col William H. Blanchard Maj Gen Clements McMullen Brig Gen Donald N…
  • p. 33 …Additionally, this history showed that the 509th Commander, Colonel Blanchard, went on leave on July 8…
  • p. 34 the supposed first ever recovery of extraterrestrial materials. (Detractors claim Blanchard did this as a ploy…
  • p. 43 …Additionally, it seems that there was overreaction by Colonel Blanchard and Major Marcel in originally reporting…
  • p. 65 …William Blanchard, the Public Information Officer, Walter G. Haut, issued a news release that the Amry…
  • p. 87 …on 8 July 1947. Colonel W. H. Blanchard, Commanding Officer went on leave. Lt Colonel Charles…
  • p. 88 …Colonel Oliver LaFarge, Air Reserve Corps, at Santa Fe, made arrangements for Colonel Blanchard to visit…
  • p. 89 …Colonel Blanchard spoke on the future of the Air Force, and the talk was very well…
  • p. 135 …Colonel Blanchard. RW: Oh yeah. Excuse me, Colonel Blanchard. SC: He was the Wing Commander of…
  • p. 138 …The first picture is actually with Jesse Marcel and that's General Blanchard and... SC: I…
  • p. 143 …Colonel William Blanchard and the other officer suggested that Marcel and CIC agent accompanied Brazel to…
  • p. 145 …O.K. "Blanchard, who was still at the base...ordered Marcel to accompany the rancher back…
  • p. 147 …Albuquerque rather than Fort Worth and although Blanchard outranked the CIC agent (meaning yourself) a phone…
  • p. 154 …time and we don't know if Blanchard knew about that or not: (we don't…
  • p. 155 …crash at the request of Marcel; maybe Blanchard, and I probably took Rickett with me. We…
  • p. 160 …The things that Ramey and Blanchard used to! Blanchard came over to the Philippines. I think…
  • p. 219 …What about then Colonel Blanchard and General Ramey? Do you think they may have had any…
  • p. 855 ## CHAPTER XIII # VISITORS and EXECUTIVE CALENDAR 3 September 1947 - Colonel Blanchard and Lt. Haut went to…
  • p. 864 …Roger M. Ramey and Col. William H. Blanchard. Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey was the Commanding…
  • p. 865 …As commander of Roswell Army Airfield and the 509th Bomb Group, Blanchard is alleged to have…
In order to provide a more detailed discussion of the specifics of Project MOGUL and how it appeared to be directly responsible for the "Roswell Incident," a SAF/AAZD researcher prepared a more detailed discussion on the balloon project which is appended to this report as Atch 32.

## Other Research

In the attempt to develop additional information that could help explain this matter, a number of other steps were taken. First, assistance was requested from various museums and other archives (Atch 28) to obtain information and/or examples of the actual balloons and radar targets used in connection with Project MOGUL and to correlate them with the various descriptions of wreckage and materials recovered. The blueprints for the "Pilot Balloon Target ML307C/AP Assembly" (generically, the radar target assembly) were located at the Army Signal Corps Museum at Fort Monmouth and were obtained. A copy is appended as Atch 29. This blueprint provides the specification for the foil material, tape, wood, eyelets, and string used and the assembly instructions thereto. An actual device was also obtained for study with the assistance of Professor Moore. (The example actually procured was a 1953-manufactured model "C" as compared to the Model B which was in use in 1947. Professor Moore related the differences were minor.) An examination of this device revealed it to be simply made of aluminum-colored foil-like material over a stronger paper-like material, attached to balsa wood sticks, affixed with tape, glue, and twine. When opened, the device appears as depicted in Atch 31 (contemporary photo) and Atch 25 (1947 photo, in a "balloon train"). When folded, the device is in a series of triangles, the largest being 4 feet by 2 feet 10 inches. The smallest triangle section measures 2 feet by 2 feet 10 inches. (Compare with descriptions provided by Lt Col Cavitt and others, as well as photos of wreckage.)

Additionally, the researchers obtained from the Archives of the University of Texas-Arlington (UTA), a set of original (i.e., first generation) prints of the photographs taken at the time by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that depicted Ramey and Marcel with the wreckage. A close review of these photos (and a set of first-generation negatives also subsequently obtained from UTA) revealed several interesting observations. First, although in some of the literature cited above, Marcel allegedly stated that he had his photo taken with the "real" UFO wreckage and then it was subsequently removed and the weather balloon wreckage substituted for it, a comparison shows that the same wreckage appeared in the photos of Marcel and Ramey. The photos also depicted that this material was lying on what appeared to be some sort of wrapping paper (consistent with affidavit excerpt of crew chief Porter, above). It was also noted that in the two photos of Ramey he had a piece of paper in his hand. In one, it was folded over so nothing could be seen. In the second, however, there appears to be text printed on the paper. In an attempt to read this text to determine if it could shed any further light on locating documents relating to this matter, the photo was sent to a national-level organization for digitizing and subsequent photo interpretation and analysis. This organization was also asked to scrutinize the digitized photos for any indication of the flowered tape (or "hieroglyphics," depending on the

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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.