Documents / Report

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…
in March. E on new weather calculations 20 Feb. Found adding wind directly to velocity from temp gives accurate enough results. Changed 20 Feb rocket and plotted up altitudes against signal Strength - shows nothing significant & started on 1 April rocket. Have all 4 station azimuths about finished. Phil Chantz and Wiggett in by train Friday night. They brought in records of Flights 28, 29 and 30 on east coast - 1 of May and 2 in June. Went over records Saturday and identified signals of 28-29. Balloon expedition personnel arrived Saturday evening - Peoples, Trakowski, Mears, Ireland, Olsen, Moulton, Alden from AMS and Moore, Schneider, Hackman, Smith, Hazzard, 2 others and a Lt Smith from Navy NYU. 29 June (Sun) NYU personnel and some of Watson Lab men working today with equipment in north hanger. Went to Ruidoso with Mears, Trakowski, Godbee, V & E Week of 30 June - 5 July '47 Alamogordo. Vivian worked on Tests 9 and 10, finishing all upward data on GR3 recordings. Eileen worked on 1 April rocket, getting signal strengths vs altitude (corrected for weather data) and started on time calculations to get time of signal for correlation purposes. Appears likely that strength of signal is dependent on station factors rather than anything about rocket.

Balloon tests? 7, 8, 9, and 10 off this week. Test 7, slated for 1 July postponed until 2 July as equipment was not ready. 100 tanks Helium obtained from Amarillo Monday evening. Also radiosonde receivers set up by NYU personnel Monday but were not operable. Test 7 at dawn on July 2 with pibal 1 hr first following with theodlite. Winds were very light and balloons up between A air base and mountains most of time. Included cluster of met balloons. Followed by C-54? for several hours & finally landed in mountains near road to Cloudcroft. Before gear could be recovered, most of it had been stolen. Stations operating at north hanger, Cloudcroft and Roswell. Shots made unfortunately at Site #4 and picked up good from north hanger and from Cloudcroft for awhile. Nothing from Roswell. On Thursday morning 3 July, a cluster of GM plastic balloons sent up for V2 recording but V2 was not fired. No shots fired. Balloons up for some time. No recordings from Roswell as pibal showed no W winds. Balloons picked up by radar WL and hunted by Manjak C-45. Located on Tularosa Range by air. Out pm with several NYU by weapon carrier but we never located it. Rocket postponed until 730 Thursday night but at last minute before balloon went up, V2 was called off on account of accident at White Sands. Sent up cluster balloons with dummy load. Balloon flight #10 at dawn on July 5th. Had gone out in C-45 again with Moser and Dubell to hunt for balloon from Flight 8 but not since? we found them. C-54 went to El Paso and picked up single Smith plastic balloon and GM cluster plastic balloons. Flight 10 with single plastic followed from Alamogordo and Cloudcroft. Shot 8 shots from Site 4. Picked up most and lost signal at 845. Balloons? more than 6 hrs although time clock had been put in to bring them down after 5 hrs.? were picked up by? C-45 as first flight out was delayed. Had special balloon at 7 with explosive charge which went off at 35,000 ft and at 745 but by that time the receiver had lost the signal. Followed by radiosonde series until after 1300. Cloudcroft off at 8 and doubtful about signals received.

Peoples and Trakowski up 4 July with Dr. O'Day of CFS to Alamo Tower ---- ? Solar Observatory the SCEL station. Schneider up with O'Day to check use as NYU station.

Alamoggrdo crew helped get helium, and did ground shooting of 2 July. Out July 3 at Dona and Launching sites at 2 pm and later at night.

Finished identification on Flights 28, 29 and 30 on east coast and made plans for Bermuda flights.

Unable to leave for home on 3 July as was planned and wired Donnie first part of week if he could change his schedule and go home folloeing week. Got wire back that he had decided not to make the trip.

decided not to make the trip. July 6(Sun). Worked at office on flights and rocket data. Started on plans for speech 17 July meeting NYU - Getting ready for Flight 11. Plans are to put up Smith balloon with GM ? plastics + simple met balloon sonobuoy + balloon bomb.

plastics + simple met balloon sonobuy + balloon bomb. July 7 (Mon) Alamogordo. Balloon Flight 11 A off at 0503. Big plastic with small auxiliary plastics. WL gear - radiosonde and dribbler. Followed with theodolite and receiver until about 11. Picked up on radiosonde receiver at Roswell and followed then.Finally came down (at 10,000 ' cap should have punctured plastic) near Hwy 70 between Roswell and Tularosa. Second balloon - met balloons with radio sonde up about 630. Third balloon with 2 1/2 # stick TNTand caps set by pressure element to fire at 35,000' up at 0630. Surface bombing at Site 4 from 545 to 845 at 15 min intervals. Ireland followed main receiver only about 3/4 hr but followed radio sonde about 3 hrs. 35,000' explosion off about 655.

Vivian got all instructions for completing work on Flights 1-30 and picked all records and filed. Sent off TWX re Bermuda Flight and wrote up memo on it. Worked with Eileen on

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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.