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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…
The following statistics for a given pressure (1001.8 millibars) were computed:

 N.Y.J. Shop Model L-416	Brailsford Model B-501
on the mean	12.5%	34%
within 0.1% of mean	25%	50%
"	0.2%	"	41.5%	70.5%
"	0.3%	"	62.5%	85.5%
"	0.4%	"	75%	91%
"	0.5%	"	95.6%	100%

Other conclusions arrived at as a result of this test were:

(a) Since changes of speed of the motors did not occur simultaneously in the two instruments, the speed changes probably are not due to slight changes in pressure or temperature.

(b) Sensitivity varied from 0.1 to 0.9 millibars.

(c) Sensitivity increased with increase of rate of pressure change.

It was recommended as a result of these tests that the records of flights when the balloon is floating be read to the nearest two-tenths of a percent of a cycle, or approximately two-tenths of a millibar, for high accuracy. When using the instruments manufactured by Brailsford and Co., satisfactory accuracy will be attained, if necessary, when the record is read to the nearest one-tenth of a percent of a cycle.

In the second group of tests the pressure was reduced slowly to about 20 millibars and increased to sea-level pressure at different temperatures.

The most comprehensive series of calibrations was made with the first instrument made by Brailsford and Co. Two runs were made at room temperature (229C), one at -100C, one at -30 to 370C and one at -56 to -620C. On the last test at the lowest temperature, the unit was found to be completely unreliable. The cause of failure was the erratic motor operation at extremely low temperatures. This had been observed previously during flights when the Olland-Cycle was not thermally insulated.

The other curves were plotted on a single chart in order to study their spread (see Figure 31). The envelope of curves thus obtained showed no regular temperature effect over the range $ + 2 2^{\circ} \mathrm{C} $ to $ - 3 7^{\circ} \mathrm{C} $ . In general, the envelope was less than 10 millibars wide although at some higher pressures it was as much as 12 millibars wide. The curves at low pressures fell closest together and were all within 3 to 4 millibars apart between 50 and 150 millibars and 6 millibars apart between 150 to 200 millibars.

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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.