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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. 190 …Well, Boford was Navy, that was the Navy... Q: Like taking a Pi Ball reading now…
  • p. 191 …fabricate balloons for us. During that period we heard of the Navy project that was going…
  • p. 207 …But were any of those used as precursors to Mogul or... A: None whatsoever. That was…
  • p. 270 …Ewing had conducted considerable research for the Navy during World War II, studying, among other things…
  • p. 323 …f) Measurements of actual sound channel transmission using a small stratosphere balloon carrying sound receivers and…
  • p. 657 …At the present time this company cannot supply us with balloons until Navy clearance is obtained…
  • p. 693 …for six hours using a non-extensible envelope with the addition of a ballast valve to…
  • p. 704 …Met Gifford who has 90' sea rescue boat this project is planning to use. Stayed at…
  • p. 705 …Wyckoff, Hungerfield, Vaux and myself regarding Navy participation with us in Crossroads. Captain Kellogg of Weather…
  • p. 718 …Schneider up with O'Day to check use as NYU station. Alamoggrdo crew helped get helium…
Released from Alamogordo, New Mexico, 1241 MST, August 25, 1948 Recovered at Lovington, Texas

This flight was planned to measure the diffusion and leakage of lifting gas through a 20-foot, .001" polyethylene balloon at 40,000 feet. A fixed-leak orifice was set to flow at 100 grams per hour, and an automatic ballast valve was included to supply more ballast as demanded. This automatic valve broke on release, and the flow of 100 grams per hour was not sufficient to keep the balloon and equipment up.

Temperature data on this flight was obtained from thermistors inside the balloon, inside the battery and in the free air. These data and the heighttime curve are shown in Figure 38. During the period from 1400 to 1530 when

Figure 38

the balloon was slowly descending, the temperature of the gas increased with respect to the free air temperature, and a differential of 150C was recorded at 1530. With subsequent, more rapid descent, this differential was reduced, presumably by ventilation. The battery box temperature remained above 100C after four hours aloft.

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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.