The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

part of the trajectory of the constant-level balloon. The interesting fact about the White Sands observation is that at all but one of the other reported altitudes between the ground and 20,000 ft, the wind directions were from either the NE or SE quadrants.

The trajectory of the balloon curved slightly anticyclonically over the eastern slopes of the Sacramento Mountains. This characteristic is suggestive of the well-known deforming effect of a mountain range on an air current directed toward the axis of the range. In this case, however, the validity of invoking the aforementioned effect to explain the anticyclonic curvature, when the wind at levels below the mountain summits appears to have been blowing approximately parallel to the range, depends on assuming that the air currents parallel to the range themselves constitute a barrier deforming a higher current blowing in a different direction across the mountains. The sharp cyclonic bend that occurred after the balloon had come over relatively flat country occurred at the time that the balloon began its final descent and is due to the fact that the course of the balloon turned toward the north as a result of descent to levels where the wind had maintained a southerly direction throughout the day.

It is of interest to compare this flight with Flight 17 (fig. 10). It may be observed on fig. 10 that no deform-

ing effect of the mountain barrier is apparent. This, however, is to be expected, as the altitude of the balloon above the mountain top is three times that of Flight 11, where this anticyclonic deformation of the trajectory was observed. The balloon was ultimately recovered from Croft, Kansas, a distance of 530 miles from the release point; on the basis of the observed wind speeds a 12-hour flight duration is estimated.

## 9. Conclusion

Within the coming year it is hoped that a number of meteorological investigations may be attempted, utilizing constant-level balloons. Release of three or more from a single point to float at the same level, release at a number of points to obtain a synoptic presentation of the trajectories in a chosen level, and the dropping of radiosondes from balloons are some of the operations to be attempted. Efforts will be made to simplify the arrangement so that a constant-level flight may be made in a routine fashion and at no greater cost than the ordinary radiosonde flight.

## REFERENCE

FIG. 10. Height-distance curve and planned trajectory of balloon Flight 17. Released at Alamogordo, New Mexico, 9 September 1947, at 1647 MST. First 125 minutes only are shown. (Numerals on curves indicate minutes after release.)