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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. 39 …An advance ground team, led by Albert P. Cray, preceded the NYU group to Alamogordo Army…
  • p. 96 …OSI also developed an advanced Narcotics Investigations Course designed to teach the latest technics in combatting…
  • p. 174 …Dr Crary and Dr Peoples were the advance people and scientific monitors for our project. Dr…
  • p. 247 …Spilly was a consultant, and even in his advancing age he was still an enormous source…
  • p. 273 …the advance party of the balloon group arrived by B-17. $ ^{21} $ On May 29, the…
  • p. 617 …in advance of balloon release and a second notice will be filed at the time of…
  • p. 618 …Upon attaining the desired altitude, the auxiliary lifting balloons will be released from the main balloon…
  • p. 694 …in advance of balloon release and a second notice will be filed at the time of…
  • p. 695 (1) The type balloon to be used in this phase of the project will be a…
The method used heretofore is variation of balloon load through changes in the amount of ballast used. However, there are upper and lower limits on the amount of ballast that can be used, due to the strength limitations of the fabric. Also, the "height sensitivity"; that is, the ratio of change in altitude to change in load, is not great enough to provide suitable choice of heights.

B. Another attack is to effect a change of volume by making openings below the equator of the balloon. The volume of gas contained in the balloon envelope is then obviously limited.

C. If this method of height control proves to be unsatisfactory, still other control mechanisms will be sought.

The three objectives, with their indicated subdivisions, will be pursued to better effect control of the balloon altitude. A parallel pursuit will be the investigation of other balloon types and sizes, in addition to the satisfactory General Mills Polyethylene models now in use. Thus, plans for the future include both the development of control devices currently under test and also a broad, general study of the basic components of constant-level balloon trains from the theoretical as well as the operational viewpoint.

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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.