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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. 16 …of alien beings and elusive vehicles which never quite seem to manifest themselves. Regardless of one…
  • p. 28 …Conversely, there has never been any previous documentary evidence produced by those who would debunk the…
  • p. 29 …This had never been officially done before, although most of the persons contacted reported that they…
  • p. 37 …Lt Col Cavitt also stated that he had never taken any oath or signed any agreement…
  • p. 67 …Because this conclusion is based on the absence of documentation, the issue can never be definitively…
  • p. 82 …If written, there is good evidence through accessioning and microfilming records that the Agency never received…
  • p. 84 …histories and supporting documents, and it has never routinely received the kind of records which might…
  • p. 131 …I have never been sworn to any form of secrecy by anyone concerning this matter and…
  • p. 136 …It never crossed my mind that it could be anything but a radio sonde. RW: How…
  • p. 139 …as far as I knew, I never heard anyone say, "Don't talk about this and…
  • p. 140 …I never met LaPaz personally, but I knew what he was. RW: Did Rickett go with…
  • p. 141 …I forget since I was there in the Washington area for awhile but I never did…
  • p. 143 …To the best of my recollection, I never met the rancher, Brazel. RW: O.K., because…
  • p. 144 …I've never seen a Geiger counter myself, but I didn't know if you knew…
  • p. 145 …said you never saw...and then you said you were going to...you never saw the…
  • p. 146 …I never had any idea that it was anything with the V-2. They told us…
  • p. 148 …You and I never saw this. You don't see any military people or military vehicles…
  • p. 149 …said in a facetious way: "Lets make out like it never existed, because we're wasting…
  • p. 150 …to him the crash and recovery had never happened. There was no investigation on the Foster…
  • p. 153 …No, I never saw this. SC: I don't know what that is from. RW: "But…
  • p. 154 …So, some of there records were TS and still are.) That is because they have never…
  • p. 156 …Cav never told me anything. He said I'll never tell you anything then you won…
  • p. 160 …I am quite sure that we never gave it a thought until that book.
  • p. 161 …Now, we have never found the flight records to substantiate that, so I don't know…
  • p. 171 …related to this inquiry and I have never been threatened by US Government persons concerning not…
  • p. 175 …related to this inquiry and I have never been threatened by US Government persons concerning refraining…
  • p. 179 …We never considered a planned cover story; we were concerned with security. I was the project…
  • p. 180 …I never observed any of the balloon "trains" but I did see some of the early…
  • p. 190 …and subsequent models were brand new, had never flown anything like that in this area. A…
  • p. 193 …I'd never heard the name Mogul -- the classification was that high. I knew what we…
  • p. 205 …I just wanted to see if there had been anything stated to you never to discuss…
  • p. 207 …Yeah, I knew that guy, but I never knew Marcel. Q: So you went, moving into…
  • p. 208 …I've never seen a Japanese balloon that I know of, I've never seen the…
  • p. 211 …No, I've never seen this. Trakowski argued that even the name Mogul was classified, and…
  • p. 214 …Out PM with several NYU men by weapons carrier, but we never located it. Rocket postponed…
  • p. 229 …As far as I know we just never interfaced with the military. Q: Where were you…
  • p. 231 …We never saw anybody in security. There was certainly nobody keeping us secure. If anything, we…
  • p. 237 …who was writing a story, and I never quite could determine whether he was on the…
  • p. 238 …I have never seen such a document nor have I ever heard of any effort to…
  • p. 241 …radar reflectors for tracking purposes—but it never comes out talking about MOGUL and the instrumentation…
  • p. 242 …I never met Richard Robert Crane. I knew him only by the path of debris he…
  • p. 246 …They never said it, but I know they did because they left me free to do…
  • p. 269 …Before now, however, a larger portion of the story was never told. Recent research indicates that…
  • p. 271 …and Project MOGUL as first conceived was never put into operational use. However, MOGUL did serve…
  • p. 272 …Moore, NYU Constant-Level Balloon Project Engineer, stated that they were never informed of the classified…
  • p. 314 …I was never the Holloman Base Weather Officer. Lt Colonel Maas was assigned as Base Weather…
  • p. 477 …automatic ballast controls, and this flight was never recovered. Presumably the marked easterly flow then observed…
  • p. 501 …of efficiency since on-off operation was never permitted. The temperature data of these flights is…
  • p. 648 …The theodolite lost the balloon in clouds earlier and the airplane observer never succeeded in seeing…
  • p. 670 …make model and submit same before quoting. Never heard anything. 1/21/47 Western Products Inc…
  • p. 710 …Recorded at Dona but Phil at Tower site never saw rocket. Waited at Dona until 6…
  • p. 718 …Out pm with several NYU by weapon carrier but we never located it. Rocket postponed until…
  • p. 726 …CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Opinion has been strengthened that clusters of meteorological balloons will never be a…
the balloon can rise slowly until the balloon is again full and the equilibrium is again reached between the buoyancy and the load. In the General Mills 20-foot balloon, for example, diffusion losses equal about 300 grams per hour; the balloon at its ceiling of 50,000 feet, with a 30-pound payload, risea about 900 feet with each kilogram of ballast dropped. This means that a balloon, using the simple ballast-dropping technique, will float at a ceiling which rises at the rate of about 360 feet per hour. An idealized flight of this type is shown in the solid curve of Fig. 7., neglecting the oscillation shown at sunset.

The "manual ballast valve" which was developed for this simple control system is shown in Fig. 8. This valve can be adjusted prior to balloon release to allow any predetermined flow of compass fluid up to 2000 grams per hour. The filter housing and ballast reservoir used with this valve are shown in Figures 9 and 10. This method is good where 1) a slowly rising ceiling can be tolerated, and 2) the flight does not have to go through a sunset while at its ceiling.

For economy of ballast, hence longer flight duration, it is desirable to keep the constant flow as close as possible to the total loss of buoyancy resulting from diffusion and leakage. This means that whenever rapid loss of buoyancy occurs, due to changes in solar radiation, the manual ballast valve alone will not sustain the balloon. When the balloon is suddenly cooled, due to sunset or clouds cutting off insoilation (loss of superheat), the heavy loss will start the balloon downward and only a rapid expenditure of ballast will check its fall and restore its stability.

The second type of ballast dropping control has been devised to operate on a demand basis, when such a descent occurs. This control is called the automatic ballast valve. Figures 11, 12 and 13 show the appearance and design of this pressure-actuated needle valve.

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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.