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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.
“Blanchard”20 pages
## D. Accessory Flight Equipment On most flights, three pieces of equipment are added to the train for special purposes. These are: (1) a banner, (2) a drag parachute, and (3) safety weights. The banner is a red or yellow cheesecloth rectangle, 3 x 6 or 6 x 12 feet, with aluminum spreaders at top and bottom. Shown in Figure 15, the banner is tied taut to the load line, and serves to reduce sidewise swaying as the balloon rises. Due to the bright color, it is useful in locating the balloon after being grounded and acts as a warning to air craft during descent and ascent. If thodolite stadia determinations are being made, the banner can be used as one of the check points on the train. The drag parachute is inserted into the train above the banner in inverted position and serves to retard the ascending balloon somewhat, thus reducing the probability of bursting due to excessive rates of rise. To correct a too slow rate of rise, (which may result from under inflation due to gage errors, freezing of valves, or excessive adiabatic cooling of the gas during inflation) two small bags of sand or shot are added to the bottom of the restraining line. If it appears that the balloon is not rising with the desired velocity as it picks up the equipment, one or both of these safety weights are cut free. The weight of each bag is equal to the desired free lift, so that if the computed free lift is not available, this lift may be supplied. Prior to the adoption of this practice, it was necessary to sacrifice equipment or the balloon in such cases. ## E. Tracking and Recording Instruments Depending upon the nature of the flight, the weather conditions, and the equipment available, gear may be added to the flight train to aid in horizontal position determination and altitude measurement. The discussion of suitable equipment for such work is given in Section VII. In general, the equipment added may be either radio transmitters or gear of other assorted types. Each unit is rigged separately, with hooks at each end of the line segment. Prior to the inflation of the balloon a thorough check of all such equipment, especially radio gear, is made. It is necessary to have spare equipment tested, calibrated, and assembled for last minute replacement if failure is detected at this time.
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.